Compress Avi TV series -> DVD Christmas Gifts

[TeslaCoils]

Compress Avi TV series -> DVD Christmas Gifts
What are the best compression utilities to squeeze as many episodes possible onto DVDs?

I've got a Winders box chugging away,
but my more powerful boxes are running a few 'nix flavors...

Thanks kindly,
& Merry Christmas & Hanukah!

[Rubberman]

Assuming you want a DVD that will play in a normal TV-DVD player, then you have to first convert them to mpeg2 format for DVD playback. I use ffmpeg for this, as in

ffmpeg -i filename.avi -target ntsc-dvd -sameq -async 20 filename.mpg

Then, you need a DVD authoring tool to create the DVD file structures and menus that can be written to a disc which will then be playable in a standard DVD player. If you are in europe and need PAL format, then change the ffmpeg argument "-target ntsc-dvd" to "-target pal-dvd".

As for how many episodes will fit on a DVD, it depends upon the length of the episodes and whether you are using a single-layer or double-layer disc. You should be able to fit 4-8 45 minute episodes on a DL (double layer) disc.